Tuesday, July 20, 2010

How's the Plumbing down There?

There is a troubling term going around where someone refers to a woman's insides as "plumbing." I guess I am not so troubled about the disrespect that is being implied for the organs which create life, but rather, I wonder if the phrase really only applies to women.

The term is so loose that it can easily be used for any internal organ. We don't see plumbing in our homes, but we know that it works and that it movies liquids around somehow. The same can be said of basically any of our specific guts. So why then do I only hear the term applied to the birthing areas of women? Men have "plumbing" too, don't they?

Let us think about the use of this term. Since it is only applied to women (as far as I know), does that make it respectful or disrespectful? It could be respectful in that, since it does apply to a specific and extremely important region, the term is not sullied by being used on men who do not have those same pipes. Or, it could be simply a way of slandering an important region of the body as a way of making it seem not so important--thus women, though having the ability to give birth, are not more powerful than men.
"My stomach has been bothering me."
"Oh, you mean your plumbing? Get real."

To be clear, none of this matters in any way at all.

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